Spell Compendium: What are the "broken" spells?

[Elder-Basilisk]

@Elder-Basilisk: Yeah, still a very potent protection for sure, but you will use up a lot more slots then, if you always have to cast it before an attack is resolved (interrupting the attack, thus happening before the attack roll). That's quite a difference to me.

Quite a difference, but 4th level slots are cheap by level 12 or so and characters don't take attacks when they are in danger of dying that often. So you only need a couple prepared and you can use pearls of power to refresh them for later fights.

A small price to pay to completely remove the possibility of death by hp damage.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Also, in my list of spells that absolutely need to be banned, I realized that I forgot one important series of spells: any spell that gives you extra standard actions needs to be banned. As I recall, there is a series of spells that lets you steal the move, standard, etc action from your next turn. They should all be banned (along with the MIC belt of battle). 3.0 Haste does not need to return to the game. It was bad in 3.0 and continued to be bad in 3.5.

You said it yourself -- you don't get an extra action with the celerity spells, you steal it from your next turn. So what's the big deal? (I understand that if the dazed penalty is removed somehow, then there is a serious problem, but otherwise they seem like emergency-only spells.)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

You could always ammend the belt of battle's usages to be move action, standard attack action, or full attack action. In any case, it takes a swift action to use, which I could be using to cast another spell anyway, so I never found belt of battle terribly worthwhile for any of my casters. I mostly like it for Tome of Battle characters, actually. My friends like ot come up with a character's "limit break" -- the way they could nova most gloriously. One of my character's concept (never reached high enough level) used the belt, a master (? the one that allows up to 9th level maneuvers) Diamond Mind Ring, and the Storm Guard Warrior tactical feat.

[sblock]Set-up: Full attack as touch attacks for no damage, as per the combat rhythm tactic, each touch granting you +5 damage on next round's attacks on that target... Use Sudden Leap or Quicksilver Motion ot close to melee first, though I prefer waiting for an enemy to come to me.
Execution: Use Time Stands Still for two full attack actions, all getting that +x damage. Then, use belt of Battle (swift action) for another full round action. The DM ring allows you a second use of TST without recovering maneuvers. Take ANOTHER pair of full attack actions, also with +x to damage...
If you REALLY wanted to focus on this kind of 1/day nova, you could ready Avalanche of Blades for the prep round of touch attacks, but I consider that a waste just for one trick, cause otherwise it's an awful maneuver.[/sblock]

EDIT: Actually, I had a pouncing, charge-based (Leap Attack, Storm Trooper, etc...) Barbarian/Rogue once who could also have used the Belt of Battle to AT LEAST as disgusting effect as any spellcaster.

 

[Ifni]

My picks:
-Bite of the Werebeast line - +16 Str and free feats in addition to the natural strength of wildshaped druids / animal companions? Uhuh.
-Ray of Stupidity - it's not just the Int-3 foes who have to worry about this. Ability damage stacks. Think about Split Ray Empowered Rays of Stupidity. Average 10 Int damage will take down a lot of creatures - and the ones with higher Int often NEED that Int, an NPC wizard who's just lost 10 Int is probably quite sad.
-(Greater) Consumptive Field - I don't understand why anyone thought a spell that let you get +unlimited Str for killing sufficient bunnies was a good idea... admittedly it's a lot worse Persisted, but even the rounds/level version is pretty exploitable.
-Wraithstrike - enough has been said.
-Mass Resist Energy - a few levels higher and it would probably be fine.
-Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability - maybe. It's dangerous in that it effectively grants extra actions to the PC. It's probably less worrisome if you allow a lot of the good alternate class features that trade in your familiar.

I don't have a major problem with the Orb spells, although I also would have no problem with a houserule moving them to Evocation. They're mostly just mediocre single-target damage with a minor rider effect - backup options for the (hopefully rare) case where your caster doesn't have anything better to do. (To justify "mediocre damage" - I'm comparing to "the damage I would get by using that action and spell-slot to D-Door the big tank fighter next to her target for a full attack".)

I don't think Delay Death is broken so long as you actually enforce immediate action rules - can't be used when flat-footed, only once per round, and they eat your swift action for the next round. I also take the interpretation that you have to cast it before the attack is resolved - Close Wounds is an explicit exception to the usual immediate-action rules. Having played a cleric with it for several levels, I'd also note that there are a lot of other really good L4 cleric spells to compete with it.

Now, if you use the Destiny domain from Races of Destiny, but the version of Delay Death from SpC, then it's a L3 domain spell - and therefore can be chained with a lesser metamagic rod of chaining (which is pretty cheap in the MIC). THAT can be broken, because the party chips in for the cleric to buy L3 pearls of power, and then every fight begins with "I cast chained Delay Death on the entire party as soon as I'm not flatfooted". That's a combo issue, though.

Brambles... meh. It's rounds/level and you have to be wielding a wooden weapon, possibly a wooden bludgeoning weapon depending on how you interpret "striking surfaces".

Rhino's Rush can be used to great effect, but if you're going to ban that one, be fair and ban Lion's Charge as well. Don't give the druids all the charging fun at the expense of the poor paladins

In the somewhat related category of "spells that make your players hate you", I would list Ray Deflection and Ironguard, with an honorable mention to Scintillating Scales (I've fought a dragon with this, and we'd already used up all our dispels - not pretty). Ray Deflection and Ironguard do a pretty good job of shutting down whole classes of attacks that people may have specialized in. Fleshshiver is also a lot scarier on NPCs than on PCs - NPCs tend to have access to more ways to boost CL (especially if the CL is based on HD for some reason).

Re belt of battle: my sorcerer loved hers. That said, she took it off a pouncemonster barbarian ("I shocktrooper-charge-pounce, full power attacking with no penalty to hit! Then I use my belt of battle and full attack you again - still full power attacking with no penalty to hit!"), so I think she earned it Being able to effectively quicken a top-level spell can be extremely useful.

EDIT: Re Celerity - part of the problem is combos with the Arcane Fusion line from Complete Mage. Another part is the ability to get daze immunity (e.g. from Favor of the Martyr - although given that makes you immune to "effects that would cause you to be dazed", you could argue that it makes you immune to the WHOLE effect of Celerity, including the good bits). But even used just as written... being able to take standard actions as immediates is powerful. After my first game with Celerity on my sorcerer I thought of a bunch of ways I could have used it (but didn't think of at the time, due to being sick and sleep-deprived) - for example, if I'd used Celerity to cast Spiritwall or Wall of Force when the Balor exploded, we would've needed a lot less healing. Another application is being able to interrupt enemy spellcasting without having to ready an action (cast Celerity when they start casting, toss a damage spell or a Silence in their direction, or something that blocks their line of effect). It's also very good for first-round novas - I've been on the receiving end of swift-action spell + Chained Greater Dispel (to shut down visible magic items and dispel all buffs below CL 26, in that case) + Celerity + Sudden Extended Timestop, and that was painful - there were over 100 levels of spells on the battlefield by the time anyone in my L14 party got to act.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Trade a move/standard/full action now for completely giving up your next turn? Was your sorcerer really doing this regularly? I'm curious because I, personally, would be extremely nervous having my sorcerer "take five" every other round. I remain unconvinced that this spell is broken as written. (Not that anyone needs to convince me....)

 

[Runestar]

I would argue that belt of battle is more useful to a fighter than a caster. With 3 charges, a fighter can use it to get 3 extra move actions, allowing him to move+full attack thrice a day. Conversely, a caster can only get 1 extra standard action out of it, and he doesn't really have much use for extra move actions.

My casters rarely ever used celerity to fuel novas, to be honest. It was more of a "get out of a crappy situation" card, a last ditch effort to cast some key spell in response to the opponent's attempt to screw around with the party (like yeah, that example of casting wall of force in response to the balor exploding to contain the fallout from his death throes). Only the standard action version saw use though, the move and full-round version remained unused.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

You said it yourself -- you don't get an extra action with the celerity spells, you steal it from your next turn. So what's the big deal? (I understand that if the dazed penalty is removed somehow, then there is a serious problem, but otherwise they seem like emergency-only spells.)

Acquire daze immunity and it's flat-out broken but the essential issue is that actions now are more useful than actions in the future--and if the encounter is over this round, then it doesn't matter if you are dazed next round. Anything that enables a front-end nova in the manner discussed before where the party eats 100 levels of spells before initiative 45 comes around is broken.

As for some of the other spells that have been mentioned, I agree with most of them. Lion's pounce belongs with rhino's rush on the list of "don't go there" spells. Imbue familiar with spell ability also belongs on the list.

One note with the orb spells: the rider effects are not necessarily minor. Orb of fire dazes the target for the next round. That's pretty darn good. I believe orb of electricity blinds the target for the next round. Not as good but still quite worthwhile.

Now, you don't cast them for the riders, but the riders do make them noticeably better spells unless you are up against foes with mettle.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Now, you don't cast them for the riders, but the riders do make them noticeably better spells unless you are up against foes with mettle.

In which case, you curse the fact that it has a rider as the Hexblade or whatever completely ignores the entire spell effect. I've seen that happen on several occasions, too.

As for Celerity...I was considering banning them, but for now they remain in my games. Ultimately, those line of spells are gambles. Gambles that combat WILL end this round. I personally don't like to take chances like that, but I'm sure others do. As for when I DM, I very much enjoy throwing NPCs at the party in waves, or linking together two separate combats that spills into one big brawl due to how the first fight goes down, drawing in the intended fight #2's combatants. It does many good things for the game, IMO. For one, it's dynamic and "different." It also makes it easier to find that thin little line between a barely alive party and a TPK. If the NPCs don't all attack at once, I can somewhat control the lethality while having the second, third, etc... wave come in quickly enough to stop them from just healing back to full with wands. Granted, involved combats like that can't happen all the time, but I try to have them as much as possible.

I bring that up because I think a happy little side consequence of that is the mind-set it puts the players in, greatly curbing their willingness to use spells like Celerity. My players know by now that I like to do that sort of thing. They know they can't always be sure that a combat is actually going to end. So to try and use Celerity truly is a gamble in any game I run, since anything short of a gained full round action ends up being a net loss for actions if combat continues on the next round.

 

[Runestar]

How might one acquire daze immunity anyways? Barring one spell which is forgotten realms specific (and unique only to those who worship Ilmater), and an eberron dragonmark trait (something along that line), I can't recall any other ways of becoming immune to daze.

Even undead and constructs are not exempt (with caveats).

 

[Flatus Maximus]

How might one acquire daze immunity anyways? Barring one spell which is forgotten realms specific (and unique only to those who worship Ilmater), and an eberron dragonmark trait (something along that line), I can't recall any other ways of becoming immune to daze.

Even undead and constructs are not exempt (with caveats).

I think this is right: Quick Recovery (Lords of Madness); in the case of the celerity spells you can shake it off with a DC = 10 + (your CL or HD)/2 + (your caster stat) Will save.